Subject: [big campaign] Health reform messaging opp: Insurers dropping kids-only policies
From: Aniello Alioto <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 11:43:12 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

*Big hat-tip to Zandra Rice Hawkins, ED of Granite State Progress, for
ID'ing this angle...*

For those working on health care reform -

Major insurers announced this past week that they are going to drop
children-only coverage, and they blamed national health reform as the reason
why. "Aetna said that effective tomorrow it will no longer offer policies in
the 32 states where it conducts business, including California, Florida,
Illinois, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Cigna will halt the policies in 10
states, including California, Arizona, Colorado, Tennessee and Texas."
http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/217349/health-insurers-aim-to-drop-up-to-half-million-kids

The change will only impact a small percentage of families, but it sends the
wrong message about the health law's effects. In New Hampshire, we have very
strong consumer protections and our Department of Insurance has now issued a
memo that state law prohibits the exclusion of children from the individual
market based on age.

http://www.nh.gov/insurance/media/bulletins/2010/documents/ins_10_041_ab.pdf

It would be worth a quick call to individual Departments to see if they have
grounds to issue anything similar to insurance companies - or, if not, if
they could issue a press statement condemning the actions - and then do some
work to reframe this as another example of insurer poor behavior, not a
problem with reform, but why reform was needed.

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